Cowtown Round & Dan Dougan's Listening Hours

Most Mondays at Rumba Cafe you will find an amazing songwriter round..I saw most because every once in a while a traveling band is coming through that needs a gig and the round is either moved to after the show or does not happen. Regardless, check the Cowtown Round out where Jason Quicksall and Jesse Henry (of the Spikedrivers, Royal Tycoons, and a new un-named band..I'll get to that in a minute) play host to one other songwriter either local, or traveling through. The three songwriters all sit on stage and play in a round one after another. The night is always amazing with Jason bringing is sometimes quirky, jazzy, pop, folk singer songwriter tunes and Jesse with his whiskey infused, Arlo Guthrie tinged, talkin' blues, monster truck folk rock...ha. I hate describing music in one word or genre so I choose a lot of words. Point being Jesse and Jason are two of the most talented songwriters in town that I know and it is a treat to see both of them every week (if I can make it) and then add a third songwtier and ya got magic, and usually that third is always awesome too. Tonight it was Micah Schnabel from Two Cow Garage. Two Cow has been around for about 9 years and is one of those bands that just tours a ton, which is so awesome to me. A band that makes you want to kick yourself in the butt and just get on the road and do it. According to Wikipedia Two Cow has clocked over 300,000 miles on the road, wow. I will talk more about Micah when I post the video of him. Oh I said I'd talk about Jesse's new band. So I had a gig postponed (when does that happen?) on Thursday and was able to go out to Dan Dougan's Listening Hour at Gateway Film Center. Originally Dan Dougan, former owner of Little Brothers (RIP) ran this acoustic night at Bristol, apparently Bristol is retarted and did not want this at their bar, or it just was not the right fit, who knows...anyway the Gateway is amazing. A room that fits maybe 35 seated is the scene for the Thursday night "half un-plugged" night. Performers sing not into stage mics but very nice mics (cardio condensers? perhaps?) and basically play all acoustic, when I watched Larry Cook on bass did plug in to a small amp. Megan Palmer played a great first set with Larry on bass, Jimmy Castoe on drums (love him), Jen Miller sang back up on a few, and Jesse Henry played and sang as well. Up next was...well Jesse Henry and his new band which is un-named so far. Caleb Powers on mando and guitar, Jake Young on banjo, Steve Moeller on dobro, and Chris (insert last name..sorry) on bass. More of a bluegrass sound than I have ever heard Jesse, this ensemble provides a warm bed for Jesse's songs to rest upon. Tasteful, good harmonies, and they allow Jesse to shine without overpowering. Good stuff. Dan Dougan is a great guy too by the way, I wasn't sure if I had met him before but he is just a super nice guy, I asked him if Andy and I could play the listening hours and he was enthusiastic in saying yes so look fort hat in June. Below is the video of Jason at this weeks Cowtown Round with Theo backing him up, more Cowtown videos soon.